iTunes Library and Playlists - Please Help!!!

[cmcbridejr]

I know that many variations of this question has been asked time and time again, but I have not been able to find a clear and concise answer on either MacRumors or Apple's Support Forums, so please help me.

I have an iMac G5 with around 200GB of movies and music that I want to transfer to my new iMac Intel. However, I also want to maintain the playlists, ratings, song count, album covers , etc. when I import.

From what I have read and done so far, I have attached an external firewire hard drive and pointed iTunes to that as being the location of the library. I then selected "copy all files to this location", "let iTunes manage", etc. and consolidated the library (I had stuff all over the place).

So, now I have everything consolidated onto my external drive. At the moment, I see all of the files for music, movies, podcasts, etc. However, I don't see the library or .xml files on the external. Instead, they are still on my internal drive in the User/Music/iTunes folder (along with my downloaded album covers folder).

What is the next step in transferring them into my new iMac while maintaining the library, playlists, ratings, song count, album covers, etc?

Thank you in advance.

 

[richard.mac]

have you copied over the iTunes library files/folders to your external? if so then just open iTunes while holding the option key then select the iTunes folder on your external.

if not then read on…

the iTunes library files hold all the song counts, date added info etc. of all your songs + playlists etc. and the album art cache. you need point iTunes to the folder that houses these to open your iTunes library correctly.

by default the iTunes library hierachcy is like this (you might not have exactly the same library files and folders in bold)

~/Music
>iTunes
>>Album Artwork
>>iTunes Library (no file extension, has an iTunes icon)
>>iTunes Library.xml
>>iTunes Music Library.xml
>>iTunes Music
>>>your music sorted by artist

you can keep your iTunes library files on your main hard disk and just point iTunes to your music in the preferences, but i find it easier to keep it organised like above. just replace your external hard drive for "~/Music".

 

[cmcbridejr]

Thanks for the tip.

I just completed the process, and it is actually quite simple if you maintain the default file structure.

I just placed the iTunes Music folder with all the necessary files together (.xml, library, etc.) and iTunes immediately recognized when I booted up.

Thanks again.